Blogs Vs. Wikis

Basically, a blog is a website made up of a series of “posts,” organized with the newest information at the top of the page. Blogs often allow your readers to submit comments on each post. And a wiki is pretty much a website with an edit button on it on which you can edit both the content and the organization of the site directly, right from your web browser.

Both tools made their first appearances over a decade ago in 1994. Both tools promote e-collaboration. Today's blogs and wikis share many properties. Their dominant method of navigation is a search engine. Their typical entry point is a deep link, so it must be easy to find a way back to the home page. They both excel at easily adding new posts or new entries, with minimal editing skills demanded of the user.

Wikis and blogs are often discussed in the same breath, and in some respects, they are similar. Both make web publishing fast and easy. Both are often associated with written text, but also facilitate easy publishing of pictures, movies, and animation as well. And from an educational perspective, both wikis and blogs are often used as platforms for authors to interact, negotiate, and hopefully, form communities that learn and build knowledge together. They both enhance internal communication within a community.

There are many differences between these two tools, but the most salient for educators is that wikis and blogs each place authors in very different relationships with each other and with the text(s) they create.

In a wiki, the document is at the center of the authoring community. Since all of the authors can edit any of the other authors’ work, the text is owned by the community, rather than particular individuals. When used for collaborative writing, the success or failure of a wiki project often hinges on the ability of the authors to negotiate with each other and reach a consensus. However, blogs might even have multiple contributors, but the overwhelming number of blogs still speaks in the voice of a single author. And while wikis are still a favorite tool for personal information management, the typical wiki has multiple contributors.